Nonetheless, hating gets tiring. JG’s description of the omnipresent Fred Eric last summer was lasered into my memory. Several attempts were made to visit this fleshy looking restaurant applied with too much rouge, but it was Tiara’s DineLA lunch menu at $16 that cemented the trip.

Dollar for dollar, Tiara’s lunch menu was a giant amongst DineLA menus. It presented the least amount of wallet hurt while offering cheap Fatwallet/Slickdeals-reading bastards the most amount of thrills by saving upwards of $10 (yes, I did the math).

With 4 people in the party, the DineLA menu was slain. The house special bubble bread (butchered, crispified naan) was included, as well as the normally prohibitively expensive fish enchilada and chicken breast katch, and 3 fantastic desserts. Somehow, we ended up with a 4th freeeeee dessert which was not on the DineLA menu. Out of all, the overcooked berry (clearly there were blueberry/blackberry) cobbler, a closer cousin of the crumble than an actual cobbler, was the fave. Nothing like lightly burnt, crunchy, crumbly, sugary carbs scraped off the ramekin.

Entree wise, the Pizette really outdid itself. The outer crust was very bubbly, with fine flour dust creating a beautiful mouth feel and enough pull + texture. While I’m not sure prosciutto is actually used (vs finely sliced ham), the cured pork was a perfect topping over fresh burrata which was beyond dissolved tho there was abundant pork providing ample coverage against direct Baker’s Pride deck oven’s heat. This was a fine personal pie, and it was the cheapest DineLA proffering from the regular menu. Surprisingly, the panko topped chicken-katsu, obviously a breast filet, was surprisingly similar to goods pushed out of Japanese home-style restaurants in nearby Little Tokyo. That is a good thing. Rice had fluffy, less glutinous texture I vehemently despite (think: Uncle Ben), but hey, no one goes to Tiara Cafe for good rice. Totally excused.

Beyond DineLA, one of the brunchers ordered The Bearded pancake. Beared: (adj) encrusted in corn flakes, concocted by Mr. Fred Eric. We like. Actual Maple syrup? We like. Other bloggers complained of lousy service and the ’08 DineLA weekend menu bait-n-switch. We had no problems. It was Sunday, they offered a killer bargain, there was FREE street parking, and tho there was a huge estrogen party slash baby shower on the first day of DineLA, the hostess herself stepped up HUGE and hustled to refill our coffee, bus the ceramics, change the silverware, etc.

Nothing like a 2 hour brunch in a pink room to make you wanna get a consultation on that transgender op. Bon vivant indeed.

I remain a Gold-hater. The guy is the master of the rhetorical flourish, and has led me on too many a wild goose chase because of his overuse of adjectives. He needs to curb his enthusiasm for every single restaurant east of La Brea. He is no SinoSoul.